Researchers found that stevia can lower blood pressure, similar to the calcium blockers in Western medicine, but it does not affect patients’ blood sugar, uric acid and blood lipids, and hypertensive patients can brew stevia tea as a health drink to lower blood pressure. Researchers point out that stevia is native to Brazil and Paraguay in South America, and was introduced to Xinjiang, China decades ago. The stevia glucose extracted from stevia leaves has been used as a sugar substitute in Japan and Brazil for 20 years. The study found that stevia is no less effective than existing western drugs in lowering blood pressure, but without the side effects of calcium blockers, diuretics, angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, and other blood pressure lowering drugs such as palpitations, flushing, lower limb edema, low potassium, and cough. The study was published in the internationally renowned Life Sciences and the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, and the authors concluded that stevia has been used as a food for more than 20 years, so it is already safer to develop as a blood pressure-lowering drug than the usual western drugs.